Literary Analysis: The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
In The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare illustrates moral inconsistency in human nature through the many forms of dichotomy. The trial scene in the play portrays the Christian characters as self-serving individuals under pious pretences, as opposed to their Jewish counterpart, who even while blinded by revenge adheres unwaveringly to the law. By juxtaposing words and actions, mercy and justice, Judaism and Christianity, the play showcases the religious bias that underpins a flawed legal system.
In Act IV, Scene I, Shakespeare has Portia dichotomise mercy and justice to the same hypocritical ends as Shylock’s reconciliation of the Jews and the Christians in Act III, Scene I. The trial scene (IV.i.179–223) to which Antonio and Shylock are subjected is written in hypercatalectic iambic pentameter, evidenced by the lines, ‘Yea, twice the sum: if that will not suffice, / I will be bound to pay it ten times o’er’ (IV.i.214–215). This use of blank verse effectively conveys the gravity of the situation; Shakespeare’s employment of this metre is generally understood to indicate not only the social status of his characters but also the seriousness of his works.
Moreover, the sense urgency in the scene is further accentuated through the use of shared lines in ‘Antonio: Ay, so he says. / Portia: Do you confess the bond?’ and ‘Antonio: I do. / Portia: Then must the Jew be merciful’ (IV.i.183–186). The splitting of the blank verse speeds up the conversation and is perhaps indicative of Portia’s confidence in her own sanctimony. While in disguise as Balthazar, Portia’s language in the shared lines seems terse and concrete which makes even more prominent her appeal to sentiment that comes immediately after. Upon appealing to Shylock’s mercy, her twenty-four lines take on a metaphorical tone, for instance, ‘The quality of mercy is not strained, / It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven’ (IV.i.188–189) and ‘His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, / The attribute to awe and majesty’ (IV.i.194–195). However, this timeless maxim seems completely undermined by Portia’s moral inconsistency — as Hazlitt argues (1897, p.137), after the Christians’ harassments of Shylock, ‘the appeal to the Jew’s mercy’ is indeed ‘the rankest hypocrisy or the blindest prejudice.’
The thematic hypocrisies are cleverly conveyed through the misalignment of words and actions. While in disguise as Balthazar to ultimately turn the law against Shylock, Portia promptly declines Bassanio’s appeal with the words, ‘It must not be; there is no power in Venice / Can alter a decree established’ (IV.i.222–223). In this factual tone, finalised with a full stop, Portia establishes that ‘the law is the law’. This declaration seems hypocritical when one takes into account Portia’s disguise and her deception of the entire court, the Duke included. With her crime in mind, it seems that the only true precept empirically proven through the characterisation of Portia is this: ‘[you] can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than to be one of the twenty to follow [your] own teaching’ (I.ii.14–15).
Moreover, the contradiction between Portia’s words and actions in the trial scene seems instead to moralise that ‘the law is the law’ unless you are (1) a Christian and/or (2) cunning enough to manipulate it. This thematic hypocrisy is further exemplified by Bassanio’s outright plea to law-bending, which can be seen in the lines, ‘Wrest once the law to your authority: / To do a great right, do a little wrong / And curb this cruel devil of his will’ (IV.i.219–221). The alliteration of ‘curb’ and ‘cruel’ in the last line perhaps serves to portray Bassanio’s appeal to sentiment, wherein he attempts to use rhetoric as a persuasive means. Consequently, Shakespeare’s characters in The Merchant of Venice seem to swing like a Hegelian dialectic pendulum, from spitting ‘upon [Shylock’s] Jewish gaberdine’ (I.iii.110) to piously teaching him ‘to render / The deeds of mercy’ (IV.i.205–206), all the while pummelling through their own moral inconsistencies at the midpoint of every arc.
The question ‘then is whether the law must be applied with strictest justice, or whether mercy may somehow temper it’ (Lewalski, 1962, p.183). Mercy and justice are two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other. In this vein, the imagery most prominently evoked is of mercy likening to ‘the gentle rain from heaven’ (IV.i.189). This seems to indicate that while the law is a social construct, mercy resides above both the law and the sovereign, as it is ‘an attribute to God himself’ (IV.i.199). Additionally, mercy is defined in this extract as a natural occurrence which rises from within — it cannot be forced for it ‘is not strained’ (IV.i.188). Therefore, Portia’s attempt to instil into Shylock the quality of mercy goes against exactly the moral of her maxim, which further concretises the hypocrisy in her pious character. In contrast, while Shylock’s sought-after retribution can seem disproportionate to the accumulation of abuse he has suffered throughout his life, he still chooses to proceed his case lawfully and in accordance with the moral construct of the era.
As Lewalski (1962, p.181) argues, despite his ‘degradation to a cur’, Shylock adjures for his ‘revenge’ to be carried out by the ‘proper authority’, as per outlined in the theory of retributivism, and ‘only fails through a legal flaw’ (Hazlitt, 1897, p.137) — that flaw being Portia’s manipulation of the law which, until this point, has upheld the probity of Shakespeare’s Venice. How Shylock carries out his revenge in times of misfortunes demonstrates the integrity of his character, as opposed to Portia, who deceives the Duke to rule the Court, and Bassanio, whose willingness to ‘forfeit [his] hands, [his] head, [his] heart’ to ‘wrest once the law’ (IV.i.216–219) seems hypocritical in comparision. As for Antonio, his enthusiasm to join His self-sacrificing martyrdom (Lewalski, 1962) in order to curb lovesickness carries with it a degree of affectation bested only by Portia’s sanctimony.
Through the misuse of the law and rhetoric, the result of the trial robs Shylock of his profession, his wealth and his religion. This punishment, spawned from the deception of the court, now commits Shylock to both psychological and professional death, which is in no way merciful. Nevertheless, Shylock accepts his defeat with a simple ‘I am content’ (IV.i.405), which demonstrates his ‘acknowledgement of the fact that he can no longer make his stand upon the discredited Law’ (Lewalski, 1962, p.186).
All in all, Shakespeare’s characterisation of his Christian characters as an antithesis to their Jewish counterpart produces a tragedy in disguise as comedy. Through the use of form, language and the dichotomisation of words and actions, mercy and justice, Judaism and Christianity, The Merchant of Venice is a tragicomedy which highlights the moral inconsistencies in human behaviour while simultaneously exemplifying the injustice of living.
Works Cited
Hazlitt, W., 1897. The Merchant of Venice. In: W. Shakespeare and L. S. Marcus, 2006. The Merchant of Venice. New York: W.W. Norton.
Lewalski, B. K., 1962. Biblical Allusion and Allegory in The Merchant of Venice. In: W. Shakespeare and L. S. Marcus, 2006. The merchant of Venice. New York: W.W. Norton.
Shakespeare, W. 1605 [2006]. The Merchant of Venice. New York: W.W. Norton.
Originally written in 2017 for ‘Reading Literature’
